Barry Bannan on why Sheffield Wednesday are ready to ‘kick on again’ in the Championship

The Owls tumbled out of the FA Cup in Sunday night’s fourth round tie at Stamford Bridge, but midfielder Bannan believes it was an important learning experience for the squad despite the 3-0 score line.

He said: “You can take a lot of things from the game, we were playing against some of the best players in the country and I think for spells of the game we matched them and did well.

“We had a few chances and we limited them to not a lot of chances which we can take into the league performances.

“We’ll take the positives and look at what we could have done better through the week.”

With Steve Bruce set to arrive at Hillsborough before Saturday’s league match against Ipswich Town at Portman Road, Bannan is hopeful that the Owls squad will bounce back quickly from the disappointment of their cup exit. 

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“I think he’ll come in and it’ll give everybody a lift again as you saw with Clem and Aggers coming in,” he said.

“I think it’ll kick us on again and he’ll bring experience of how to win games in the Championship and everyone will step up again once the new manager comes in.

“Training will get competitive as everyone is fighting for positions so we just want to be positive going forward and keep winning games as they come along.”

Wednesday’s new permanent manager made the headlines after his delayed start at the club was debated by Match of the Day pundits Ruud Gullit, Alex Scott and Danny Murphy on the BBC.

Murphy and Gullit have since come under fire on social media for criticising Bruce's decision, but Bannan says the Owls players are focused on continuing the hard work of Steve Agnew until their new manager arrives.

He said: “It’s hard because you look at it as Aggers is the manager at the minute, we don’t look at it any other way so I think it’ll just be when the manager does come in, we’ve got a new manager within the space of a month.

“We just look at Steve Agnew as the manager for the time being and he’s done a great job, he’s helped us, he’s given us different things to take on board and the new manager will come in this week and take over.”